Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Show Mystery Science Theater 3000: Jack Frost

Wednesday October 2, 2013
6:30 PM Please join us for the second of three nights of celebrating the 25th anniversary of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Tonight's feature is Jack Frost (episode 813, season 8).

This film version of a Russian folk tale from 1965 shows a woman is forced to slave away, while a young boy with the head of a bear must perform a good deed to reverse the curse.

On Thanksgiving Day 1988, Joel, Crow, Tom Servo, and the gang first aired their wisecracking (or should that be “sidehacking”) ability to the horrendous movie Invaders from the Deep in the “let’s-make-fun-of-really-bad-moves” show Mystery Science Theater 3000. Phone requests and a tremendous response from Minnesota viewers––who watched the initial shows on the local KTMA television station––led to the launch of additional episodes and a series that ran on Comedy Central and the Sci-Fi Network from 1989-1999. The series even spawned its own full-length feature film based on the show in 1996. The series developed a huge cult following, with early shows being circulated from person to person via VHS tapes, often around college campuses. The series’ silhouettes of Joel (and later, Mike) and the robots in front of the movie screen became iconic and many of their witty rejoinders to the film’s characters or about popular culture references, became the equivalent of Facebook posts for a prior generation.

To celebrate with MSTies (what fans of the show call themselves) around the world, the Morristown & Morris Township Library is offering a series of films in preparation for the anniversary. The Library will show two episodes of the cult-favorite show and will also show a non-MST3K movie for patrons to poke fun of themselves! Learn from the MST3K masters on Wednesdays Sept. 18 and Oct. 2 with classic episodes Manos: The Hands of Fate and Jack Frost and then come on Wednesday, Oct. 9 to give a try at ‘riffing’ a different film: Konga, a 1961 film about a giant ape that terrorizes the city of London.

Light refreshments will be served.

This program was made possible thanks to funding from the Friends of the Library.